B.C. election battle looms following Adrian Dix victory as NDP leader

VANCOUVER – The new faces of British Columbia politics make no bones about their desire to face each other in an election showdown.

But out of the gate Monday, freshly chosen NDP Leader Adrian Dix and Premier Christy Clark were in rare agreement: that showdown should wait until after voters have decided the fate of the province’s harmonized sales tax in a provincial referendum in June.

“We need to get through the HST referendum,” said Clark about the possibility of facing Dix, who was elected Sunday night to take the helm of the opposition party. “I think we should probably give their leader a little bit of time to take stock.”

The mail-in ballots for HST referendum are going out to British Columbians in June and the Liberals have said it will take at least until August to have the results.

It was the HST that led Clark’s predecessor, Gordon Campbell, to resign unexpectedly last fall, and a relentless anti-tax campaign by another former premier, Bill Vander Zalm, that forced the referendum on the 12-per cent levy in the first place.

While Clark may have ruled out an immediate campaign, she didn’t spare her new political foe some election-style sparring.

“From my perspective it’s not a bad thing to have a very clear difference between the two leadership candidates, between the two parties that are most likely to form government,” Clark said. “For me, I’m about change. What they’re about is, I think, really, is going backwards.”

And she immediately linked Dix to the NDP government of Glen Clark, who Dix served as chief of staff.

“We all remember what the 1990s were like,” she said. “I think voters wanted a clear choice and now they’ve got one.”

Liberals are eager to remind voters that Dix admitted back-dating a memo during the casino scandal that forced Clark to resign and contributed to the party’s decimation in the polls. Dix has said it was a mistake to back-date the memo that said the then-premier told him he wanted no part of a casino licence application by a friend of Clark’s.

His victory gives the Liberals a hard-line, old-school, left-wing opponent who has vowed to return the party to its labour roots.

The second-term MLA was greeted with a standing ovation by members of NDP caucus as he attended his first meeting as the leader Monday, and said he said he’s looking forward to putting the NDP’s policies up against the Liberal record in a campaign.

He said he agreed with Clark’s plans to hold off the vote until after the HST referendum, saying a vote prior to the referendum would be “disrespectful.”

But he said he is looking forward to putting his policies up against the governing Liberals.

“It’s a great opportunity for voters,” he said.

Dix said he is not afraid to take on the Liberal economic record even if they do fall back on the NDP record during the 1990s.

“It’s their record that’s in question,” he said. “The B.C. Liberals have been wrong about just about everything the last couple of years,” he said. “Wrong on the harmonized sales tax. Wrong on health care. Wrong on the economy.”

Clark has openly mused since becoming party leader in February that she may go to the polls this year, and she is already embroiled in a byelection in the Vancouver riding vacated by Campbell.

B.C.’s next fixed election date is May 2013, but that can be changed and Clark has said two years is a long time for her to govern without seeking a mandate.

The B.C. Conservatives’ new leader, former federal Tory MP John Cummins, congratulated Dix on his victory.

Some political experts say the possible return of the long-dormant B.C. Conservatives to politics could benefit the NDP if they draw votes from the small-c conservative camp of the B.C. Liberals. Pundits say Dix will strengthen the NDP’s left-wing base, while the Conservatives cut into Liberal support.